Happiness and Evolution (Part 2)

10:21:00 PM
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What does evolutionary social psychology have to do with happiness?

Do you remember in part 1 about certain brain processes occurring automatically to save on energy?

Well, from our Spiderman-like ability to detect snakes to our overwhelming ability to get bored with new purchases, these evolutionary advantages happen ‘nonconsciously.’

This means that your brain can control your everyday emotions, actions, and decisions in a big way without you ever being aware of it.

What does this have to do with happiness?

Well, the hard part about sustainable happiness is “Emotional Evanescence.”

For a while, researchers never knew why or how but they observed over and over something phenomenal...

That humans were extremely resilient and able bounce back quickly from adversity.

As a sad example, if you were to become paralyzed in an automobile accident, studies show that you would be impacted greatly by it, but not half as long as you would intuitively imagine.

You simply wouldn’t anticipate the extent to which you can transform events psychologically, and you would return to your emotional baseline quickly.

Conversely, if you were to win the lottery tomorrow, “Emotional Evanescence” would be a part of the equation and you’d find yourself, mere months afterwards, not nearly as elated as you would have guessed you’d be.

Our unbelievable ability to return to baseline, whether it be in the wake of devastating circumstances or following amazing news, is what causes “impact bias” to be among the most frequently discussed of all our cognitive biases.

Impact bias is the belief that an event (present or pending) will affect you more intensely and longer than it actually will.